How can Teilhard’s ‘lens’ help to focus the concept of the ‘second coming’ of Jesus?
Today’s Post
Over the last six weeks we have addressed the subject of Jesus from five perspectives, seeing how this subject itself evolves from the somewhat conventional understanding found in the three synoptic gospels in which Jesus is seen as one of the many ‘holy men’ that would have been familiar to the Jews of the time, to the unprecedented understanding of him as somehow ‘one with the Father’: divine, eternal, and yet still human.
We then saw how such an audacious claim matured from one requiring ‘cognitive dissonance’ to one which falls naturally and cohesively into the concept of an evolving universe in which the key aspect can be seen as ‘increasing complexity’.
We then saw last week how the evolution of thinking about Jesus, found in the theological development following his death, eroded the immediacy of both Jesus and God, as well as minimizing the concept of ‘the Christ’ as the ‘axis of evolution’ found in Paul and John.
This week we will look at a sixth facet of the ‘Jesus story’, that of the idea of his ‘second coming’, one which appears several times both in the Old Testament as well as the New. Can this cryptic forecast also be re-interpreted by employment of Teilhard’s ‘lens’?
The ‘Coming’
The idea that Jesus would literally ‘return’ is found in several places in the Old Testament. Many read Isiah’s prophesies as suggesting not only the coming of Jesus, but a later literal appearance by him in which he would assume control over humans who will have once again lost their way.
Matthew seems to address this concept more than the other synoptic gospel authors, citing Jesus as saying in Chapter 12
“For the Son of Man will come in His Father’s glory with His angels…. Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
In Chapter 24, he follows with a description of the event. Cool
”At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory”
Of course, the most famous treatment comes in Revelation, which provides a colorful and dramatic description upon which many of the more conservative Christian expressions focus as they frequently see ‘signs’ of this coming in reports of today’s events. Some, disgusted with the state of the world as seen in these events, are reported to engage in activities which they believe would stimulate this event, effectively ‘forcing God’s hand’.
Much argument has ensued in the history of Christianity on how such lines of scripture are to be understood, with the Liturgical expressions leaning toward a metaphorical understanding, and the Evangelical expressions toward one which sees them as literal forecasts.
How can they be seen when viewed through Teilhard’s ‘lens’?
Teilhard, the Noosphere and the ‘Second’ Coming
The approach we have taken thus far is to consider making ‘sense of things’ from Teilhard’s perspective of universal evolution. In keeping with our insights into Jesus as the human face of the rising sap of complexity in the tree of universal evolution (‘the Christ’), Teilhard offers his concept of the ‘noosphere’. As we have seen, the noosphere is simply the accretion of insights and inventions which occurs as humanity evolves. Beginning with the transmission of oral traditions thousands of years past, signs of the continuation of evolution can be seen today in the tight swaddling of data contained in, for example, our educational systems and global communication media. In such things our evolution as a species is escorted beyond the instinctual trappings of our mammalian ancestors into ever new ways to ‘be human’. As we evolve, this ‘noosphere’ evolves in a way that continuously fosters the growth of our understanding and in doing so refocuses our navigation of human life.
As we saw in our series on the evolution of human welfare from August, 2022,, Johan Norberg documents examples of such ‘growing of understanding’ and ‘refocusing of navigation’ in nine distinct and empirically articulated facets of life on our planet. Each one of these reflects a facet of how the noosphere both becomes enriched by and in turn enriches the human species. How can such examples be seen in the light of in our reinterpretation of the stories of Jesus?
A clue to such insight can be seen in Luke’s report of Jesus’ reply to queries from followers of John the Baptist.
“Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”
The signs that Jesus chooses to identify himself to John are ones which are focused on human welfare. He makes no reference to ‘salvation’ or to ‘right behavior’, but instead identifies those things in which benefits to human welfare can be seen. This suggests that a manifestation of the ‘presence of Jesus’ can always be found in instances of increased human welfare.
This brings us back to Teilhard’s insight that that the appearance of Jesus in history, as the human manifestation of the underlying spark of creation by which the universe ‘complexifies’, constitutes a distinct turning point in history. As we have seen, from his perspective Jesus focusses on the twin concepts of the importance of the human person and the value of relationships, and hence their function as cornerstones of human evolution. This turning point initiates a slow accretion in human history of the painful but inexorable rise of the human desire for an autonomy which is ballasted by harmony, and which therefore eventually leads to the concepts of person and equality so critical to Western society.
As we have seen in Johan Norberg’s book, “Progress”, he carefully and objectively documents nine facets of human welfare which have significantly improved in just the past hundred fifty years(February 10- February | 2022 | Science, Religion and Reality (lloydmattlandry.com). As he points out, this exponential increase did not spring from thin air, it was presaged by the long, often agonizing, efforts of humans when, as Karen Armstrong says, “Enlightened persons would discover within themselves the means of rising above the world”. And, as Norberg points out, it required a collective valuing of two critical aspects of humanity: the importance of the person, (requiring the formal codification in civil legal systems of ‘human freedom’} on the one hand, and the necessity for viable and productive ‘human relationships’ (enforced by objective and efficacious laws) on the other. All nine of Norberg’s improvements in human welfare appear more frequently in countries which embrace democratic civil norms, and the number of such countries has significantly increased during this period.
So, how does this data reflect a ‘coming of Jesus’? As the passage from Luke suggests, the presence of Jesus can be found in the things he lists. Citing Norberg’s list of worldwide human improvements, we might paraphrase Jesus:
“Go back and report to what you have seen and heard: More of the hungry are fed, they have less disease, they are more educated, they live longer and are less destitute, they are subject to less violence and fewer wars, they are becoming more sensitive to their environment and more subject to laws which grant them more autonomy while fostering increasing harmony.”
Thus, the ‘coming of Jesus’ does not constitute a single event, but is tangible in the rise of human complexity which is manifest in its improvements in human welfare.
The Next Post yes
This week we addressed Jesus from a sixth perspective, that of the ‘Second Coming’. We have seen, through John, Paul, Teilhard, Rohr, and now Norberg, how ‘the Christ’ is a continually active agent in the evolution of the cosmos, present in the ever-continuing increase of complexity seen in all stages of the universe’s coming to be, and Jesus as the manifestation of this agency as it flowers in the human person. The ‘Second Coming’ is less an event than it is a process, and the fruits of this process can be seen in the increase in human welfare which springs from its acknowledgement.
Building on this new view of Jesus, next week we will look at Jesus from a seventh and final perspective: That of the traditional church concepts of Incarnation and Redemption.